We thus, also, allow time and
opportunity for the translation of animals and plants to occupy the
earth.
But, if the earth on which we live, began to appear in the ocean at
the time when the last began to be resolved, it could not be from the
materials of the continent immediately preceding this which we examine,
that the present earth had been constructed; for the bottom of the ocean
must have been filled with materials before land could be made to appear
above its surface.
Let us suppose that the continent, which is to succeed our land, is at
present beginning to appear above the water in the middle of the Pacific
Ocean, it must be evident, that the materials of this great body, which
is formed and ready to be brought forth, must have been collected from
the destruction of an earth, which does not now appear. Consequently,
in this true statement of the case, there is necessarily required the
destruction of an animal and vegetable earth prior to the former land;
and the materials of that earth which is first in our account, must have
been collected at the bottom of the ocean, and begun to be concocted for
the production of the present earth, when the land immediately preceding
the present had arrived at its full extent.
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